2, Bridging the Gap, "Gospel and Kingdom", Graeme Goldsworthy

The Gap of Time, Culture, and Theology

First gap we must bridge is the gap of time and culture. The people and events of the Bible are so far away from us. In fact, the more we become aware of the historical context of any portion of the Bible, the more we come to recognize the great gap in time, language, and thought forms which separates us from that text.

But time and culture are not the only aspects of that gap. There is a more vital dimension to the Bible which has to do with how God has revealed himself as well as what he has revealed, a dimension which is bound up with what we call theology.

Perhaps it should be said right now that the word theology properly refers to the knowledge of God, that is, to what is to be known about God through his self-revelation. Only in a secondary way can the word be applied to the whole variety of religious study and discussion carried on both by people who accept God's self-revelation scripture and people who disagree with parts of it.

We look at this in greater detail at the end of chapter 3. To illustrate the problem of this gap of time, culture, and theology, let us suppose that we as contemporary Christians open our Bible at one of Paul's letters.

We read some of his theological exposition and then move on to the exhortation to live consistently with the truths of the gospel, granting that certain adjustments have to be made, certain allowances for the fact that Paul wrote 1 ,900 years ago to some people in Asia Minor or Italy.

We nevertheless do not feel that this is a serious barrier to our understanding. More important, we do not find that this gap seriously inhibits us from accepting Paul's words to say the Galatians as God's Word to us.

The reason is obvious. Paul addressed a group of Christians on the basis of the gospel and we recognize that despite the difference in time and culture, there is sufficient common ground theologically between the first and the 20th or 21st centuries for us to hear the words as if addressed to us.

As we analyze what has been happening, we see that we have recognized almost intuitively that from the point of view of God's revelation and God's dealings with men, the Christian Church in all ages is one.

It belongs to the same era of God's dealings. The limits of this era are at one end, at the time of Pentecost in the New Testament, and the other, the return of Christ in power and glory to judge the living and the dead.

Pre-Pentecost Narrative and the Limits of Generalization

Whenever we come to a text outside these bounds, the gap is widened and greater care and skill is required to bridge it. Let's take a short step back from our clearly defined gospel era. In Acts 1, Luke describes a situation, the post-resurrection appearances and ascension of Jesus, that is dramatically different from ours and that it occurs before the giving of the Holy Spirit.

There is a uniqueness about this period, also shared by the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2, which raises the question, how much can such a unique period provide information which applies directly to us?

After all, we do not share the situation of the people as they waited for the once-for-all beginning of a new era. An important principle for biblical interpretation is involved that we must not generalize between historical narrative without some good reason for doing so.

What makes a good reason is a question we shall examine later. In the same way, we may continue to move further into biblical history, increasing our distance from the normal Christian situation to which we belong.

The Gospels, for example, contain much narrative dealing with a time which is not only pre-Pentecost, but also pre-resurrection and pre-crucifixion. We may not simply assume that narrative about disciples and their relationship to Jesus in his earthly life provides normative instruction for us.

We know that we have to make adjustments for the fact that our relationship with Jesus, who is not here in the flesh but in heaven, is by faith and through his Spirit dwelling in us. We now look back on the finished work of Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, while the narratives of the Gospel only anticipate this completion.

It may be, for example, that John 1 .12 does have relevance to modern evangelism. To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. But we may not assume this until we have examined the original significance of the passage.

It speaks of Jesus coming physically and literally to the Jews as their Messiah. He came to his people, but they would not receive him. Verse 11, the Jews as a whole did not acknowledge him as the Christ, but those who did were made children of God.

The Old Testament, Character Studies, and Misapplied Examples

If we find this problem faces us even in the New Testament, we find much greater difficulty in the Old Testament, for there we are not only in a pre-resurrection situation, we are in a pre-incarnation and pre-Christian one.

In fact, the differences between the Old Testament situation and our own are much easier to discern than the similarities. Because of this, we tend to grasp at the obvious similarities so that they become our guide for interpretation and application.

The God of Israel is our God and his character is unchanging. The faithful people of Israel, the saints of the Old Testament, are true saints even though they do not know Christ. We tend to shelve the question of how they were saved without knowing Christ and simply ask instead how they illustrate the life of faith.

It is here that the Old Testament character studies come into their own. There are many more real-life situations to draw from in the Old Testament than in the New. Many more historical narratives that reveal to us men and women who are realistically portrayed, warts and all, in their encounter with God.

But the difficulties we meet in the historical narratives of the Gospels and Acts are increased when we come to the Old Testament narratives. We cannot simply transfer the experiences of the past wholesale to today.

There are two dangers to avoid in regard to historical narrative. A. We must not view these recorded events as if they were a mere succession of events from which we draw the moral lessons of or examples for life.

Much that passes for application of the Old Testament text to the Christian life is only moralizing. It consists almost exclusively in observing the behavior of the godly and the godless, admittedly against the background of the activity of God, and then exhorting people to learn from these observations.

That is why the character study is a favorite approach to Bible narrative. The life of Moses, the life of David, the life of Elijah, and so on. There's nothing wrong with the character studies as such.

We are to learn by others examples. But such character studies all too often take the place of more fundamental aspects of biblical teaching. Paradoxically, they may even lead us away from the basic foundations of the gospel.

Certainly we do not solve the problem by using the allegorical method and turning every historical detail into a prefiguring of Christ without regard to the whole structure of the Bible. B. We must guard against a too ready acceptance of the example of biblical characters, whether good or bad, as the source of principles of the Christian life.

If we concentrate on how David saved Israel from Goliath or what response Elijah made to the threats of Jezebel, on where Saul showed the chinks in his moral armor, as examples to follow or to avoid, then we have reduced the significance of these people to the lowest common denominator.

This approach easily obscures any other unique characteristics that may be part of Revelation. The danger in the character study approach is that it so easily leads to the use of the Old Testament characters and events as mere illustrations of New Testament truths while at the same time giving the appearance of being a correct exposition of the meaning of the Word of God.

But if the real substance is drawn from the New Testament and it alone, we may well ask, what is the point of applying ourselves to the Old Testament? Why, we may not just as well use non-biblical material to illustrate the New Testament.

To make this criticism is not to deny the value of Old Testament narrative in illustrating New Testament principles, but we should not assume that such an approach uncovers the primary meaning of the text.

To press this point even further, it should be recognized that the character study approach is frequently used in a way that implies quite wrongly that the reader today may identify with a character in question.

But we must reckon with both the historical and the theological uniqueness of the characters and events if we are not to misapply them. Is it in fact true that if God took care of baby Moses, God will take care of me?

Such application simply assumes that what applied to the unique figure of Moses in a unique situation applies to all of us and presumably all the time. But why should our children be privileged to identify with Moses rather than with other Hebrew children at the time who may not have escaped Pharaoh's wrath?

The theological significance of Moses and of his preservation is all but ignored in this case. With whom may the Christian identify in the narrative of David and Goliath? With the soldiers of Israel or with David?

Certainly not with Goliath. But someone will say there is a lesson for us in both the soldiers and in David. The former show us the Christian who lacks faith and the latter exemplifies the man who truly trusts God and overcomes the against great odds.

Never mind the ingenious bit with the stones. To a point this is true. The soldiers are afraid and David is a man who trusts God. But is that all? It certainly is not all when we read the narrative in its context.

For then we find that there is something unique about David which cannot apply to us. David is the one who immediately prior to the Goliath episode in 1st Samuel chapter 17 is shown to be God's anointed king.

He receives the Spirit of God to do mighty deeds for the saving of Israel. According to the pattern of saviors already established in the book of Judges. So when it comes to his slaying of Goliath it is as the unique anointed one of God that he wins the battle.

The application of this truth to the believer is somewhat different from a simple identification of the believer with David. Rather we should identify with the ordinary people of God. The soldiers who stand and watch the battle fought on their behalf.

The same point may be made about the lives of all the biblical characters who have some distinct office bestowed on them by God. If their achievement is that of any godly man the lesson is clear. But if it is the achievement of a prophet, a judge, or the messianic king then to that extent it is no more applies to the people of God in general then does the unique work of Jesus as the Christ.

I have sought to put the problem as it is likely to confront us in the practical situations of Christian service. Beach mission talks, Sunday school lessons, and the like. The case of the anniversary speaker in the introduction is almost autobiographical.

I'm sure such examples of misapplication still flourish. Behind it all is the problem of the unity of the Bible. This is not an academic question but one in which even our children are involved at the simplest level of Bible instruction.

Hermeneutics, Context, and the Unity of Scripture

If we are to avoid flights of fancy and interpretation we need some understanding of what governs the right approach to the meaning of the Bible. Most of us assume, rightly I believe, that there is some very basic unity to the whole Bible and to its message.

It is more than a collection of holy books in that it contains a single story of salvation. If there is such a unifying theme throughout the Bible then the structure of the biblical message, the overall relationship of each part to the whole becomes even a prime importance for interpretation.

We cannot escape the fact that every attempt to read the Bible is an exercise in the science of interpretation or, as it is called in technical terms, hermeneutics. Even a personal letter written from a friend demands that you interpret the way your friend uses language to convey to you his intended meeting.

We all know how much harder it is to converse by letter than by speaking face-to-face. In conversation we use not only words but also facial expressions and changes in the tone of voice. We can vary up the speed, loudness, and the emphasis of words.

We may stop and clarify a statement when a slight change in facial expression in our ear signals lack of understanding. But the written word lacks many of these aids to interpretation even in a personal communication from someone we know well.

Hermeneutics obviously cannot be ignored when we are dealing with the ancient text of the Bible for they were written in foreign languages and addressed to people of another age. Let us use the analogy of a map.

If you open a map or consult a tourist plan of a large city, one of the things you take for granted is that the plan represents a real unity. Thus we believe that the information on how we get from one place to another is based on the actual relationship of the parts of the city and of the streets which them.

If someone, for a joke, had glued half a map of Sydney onto half a map of Melbourne, a planned journey from the Melbourne Town Hall to the Sydney Opera House would be impossible on the basis of that map.

The two parts do not belong together and there is no unity. Now if we wish to move from a biblical text of the pre-christian era to ourselves in the 20th century of the gospel era, we must not only assume that there is a connection between the two but we must understand how they connect.

As with our map, so with the Bible, we must know the kind of unity that exists within it. Obviously this unity is not a static uniformity as if the Bible was merely a large reservoir of proof text which may be selected and applied at random with no thought for their context.

Unfortunately some people tend to work with the Bible on this basis with little credit to themselves or to the message they extract. Let us think of this question of relationships in another way. There is a well-used saying, a text without a context is a pretext.

This sound wisdom reminds us that the Bible is not a collection of isolated sentences or verses to be used at random in the establishing doctrine. One of the unhappy results of the division of the Bible into chapters and verses, which did not take place until the late Middle Ages, is an unnatural fragmenting of the text.

Paul wrote one letter to the Romans, not 16 separate chapters containing a varying number of units called verses. Most of us recognize this fact to a point. We know that anyone can prove almost anything by lifting a few verses out of context.

We recognize also that the basic literary unit for conveying thought is the sentence. But do we always understand how much the meaning of a sentence is governed by its place in a larger unit of communication?

How wide must we stretch the context in order to gain a good understanding of one sentence? We might arbitrarily set a paragraph as the limit, if we could only be sure what the equivalent of a paragraph would be in the Hebrew or Greek text, which use neither paragraphs nor punctuation.

But a paragraph usually occurs in the context of a number of paragraphs. We could go from paragraph to chapters, also units unknown to the authors, and then to the complete books. It may not always be necessary to go this far in providing the context needed for the understanding of a given verse or sentence, but any supposition of unity in the given book means that knowledge of the whole and knowledge of the parts are inseparable.

The logical conclusion to be drawn is that if the unity of the Bible has any meaning at all, the real context of any biblical text is the whole Bible. Any given text is more meaningful when related not only to its immediate context, but also to the entire plan of redemption revealed in the whole Bible.

To summarize our problem, accepting the whole Bible as the Word of God raises the question of how it speaks to us in the 20th century. How may we legitimately understand as a relevant and living word from God that which was addressed to people in situations of varying degrees of remoteness from our own?

To be aware of the nature of a problem is to be on the way to a solution. Our problem of interpretation is very closely bound up with the question of the nature of the unity of the Bible. We need to understand the relationships between the various parts of the Bible, and this means understanding not only the unity, but also the disunity which is there.

We have seen how the gap between us and the biblical text widens as we move farther back away from the gospel age to which we belong. The coming of Jesus in the flesh is the unique event which creates a kind of disunity in the Bible, and which has made its mark in human history through the distinction between BC and AD.

We have seen some important differences between the post-Pentecost, the pre-Pentecost, and the pre-Christian ages. We must now ask, what unites these ages so that the 66 books of the Bible form an organic unity of revelation?